Heinz Kiessling

Heinz Kiessling ( born March 11, 1926 in Nuremberg, † December 27, 2003 in Starnberg ) was a German musician, orchestra leader, composer and music producer who was best known for popular film and television scores.

Life

Heinz Kiessling studied after the war at the Nuremberg Conservatory piano, composition and conducting, and traveled as early as 1949 as a concert pianist around the world, where he was soon booked as a studio musician for television and recordings. In 1950 he was briefly a long time as an arranger and composer, was the successor of Erich Becht pianist in the orchestra of Kurt Edelhagen, for Kiessling then worked. In 1954, he wrote for Edelhagen " the first consistent Zwölftonstück that there has been in jazz music. " Time, he also led his own orchestra and worked many years for the RIAS Big Band. Together with the Leipzig pianist Werner Tautz 1964 he founded the label "Brilliant" on which he placed numerous national and international big bands and combos.

Kiessling has worked with many national and international stars, including with Chet Baker, Luiz Bonfá, Wenche Myhre and Caterina Valente. Over two decades, he accompanied the shows of Peter Alexander. In addition, Kiessling composed the title and scene music for numerous film and television productions, including odds and ends, two heavenly daughters, thingy, The Love Boat and reference XY ... unsolved. A total of over 1200 tunes come from his pen, which he partly also released on their own records and that made him become one of the most successful German " easy-listening " composers of the postwar era.

In 1969 he wrote - the only German composer - with In the Shadow of the Moon to a song directly for Frank Sinatra, who ( with a text by Earl Brown) grossed the song for Reprise, as the theme song for the of Sinatra's daughter Tina Sinatra co-produced TV film Romeo & Juliet '70.

His play Temptation Sensation is the theme song of the American television series It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.